Even though the idea of inclusive diagnostics might prove promising to improve inclusive education at school level, numerous doubts and uncertainties go along with its development and implementation. I AM is a cross-European research project (Iam – Europabüro (europabuero.wien)) that aims at developing an Inclusive Assessment Map (I AM) and thus contributing to the development of inclusive assessment tools and derived diagnostics within 6 European countries. In order to overcome challenges that are inherent in the field, the project applies a participatory approach. Teachers, students and other stakeholders that are experts in the field of inclusion and diversity are thus involved in data collection and tool development from the very beginning. As of now, several interviews, test phases and feedback loops on the tool took place. So far about 10 group interviews and discussions have been conducted with teams of teachers from primary and secondary school as well as with expert groups. In this way, not only an I AM pilot version could be developed but also a deeper understanding of structural, theoretical, institutional, and practical challenges and dilemmas of inclusive diagnostics could be gained. The readiness to apply a new tool is often-times associated with limited anticipation of hope for changes and administrative challenges. This presentation provides insights into the initial steps of tool development and the analysis of the group interviews. Ethical considerations play a vital part in the development process. From that perspective, assessment aims to answer the following questions: (1) characterization of the problem and (2) how the problem can be solved. Answering these questions and having a theory of how to solve a problem helps to see the indicators for the problem clearly (Schlee 2012). The I AM project applies an action-research process and associated cycles (Armstrong & Moore 2004) to change (1) concepts of disability in everyday school-practice by providing (2) environment-adaptations as support-measures for perceived problems in participation. Findings point to the fact that this strategy of recategorization through salient categories, that do not necessarily entail stigma (Boger 2018, Matschke 2018), accords to a common framework of inclusive education (Piezunka et al. 2017). Yet, further ethical questions in assessment-theory lead to dilemmas that must be discussed (Norwich 2009, Boger & Textor 2016). Therefore, the trilemmatical approach by Boger (2019) is assumed as useful.

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